Click

'Click'.

I saw this movie yesterday. Starring Adam Sandler. I guess there is nil chance for a Sandler movie to be extremely depressing, but that's exactly what it was. I reached home early last evening and the flick had just started. So the Crab sat down with munchies and chai and decided to make her evening well spent. So damned was that decision i say.

For those who have not seen the movie, here's a quick run through. Adam (Michael Newman), who is a workaholic, hardly gets to spend a fair amount of time with his (beautiful and loving) wifey and two lil kids due to the pressing work schedules. So, his scientist friend gifts him a remote that would control his life... yeah.. that means he can fast forward, rewind, change the settings everything.. as he would please. For the first few times, the gadget proves extremely useful. It would fast forward/rewind and take him to the situation he would want to go to (maybe a week, a month forward). For instance, his wife would want him to remember the song which was playing in the background when they kissed for the first time and and he obviously would do that by rewinding a couple of years back, and all that jazz. Yeah. No rocket science. At least not in todays heebeejeebee-tech life.

Then things become mucky when he becomes too restless to get promoted at work (which was due for a long time) and fast forwards his life to the moment he actually got promoted. But alas!.. he gets a blow of his life when he gets to know that the moment came after one whole year. And by this time, his wife had sought a legal separation from him (due to his apathy and apparant ignorance towards his personal life) and his kids had started hating him etc etc.

Things run out of hand when he realises that the remote is an 'intelligent' (maybe we are talking about the artificial intelligence here) device which can store Adam's preferences. It starts fast forwarding Adams life all by itself, without even him wanting to do the same.

It was here that the movie ceases to be a comedy for me. And it is here that it becomes more and more horrible and difficult to sit through.

Adam becomes wealthier and wealthier in future. He becomes a successful and a famous businessman, but is left with a broken marriage and a depreciating health (cancer, obesity, hypertension and heart problems).

Now this remote has a facility for Adam (or Michael) to just 'view' the scenes of his future life instead of actually experiencing them in person. That is he can see himself in future standing right there, with no one being able to realise his presence.

It was during one such scene that i couldnt control my tears.. when Adam rewinds his life to the scene where he saw his father for the last time before the latter dies. His father wants to speak to him and he is too busy shooting of business mails. Adam (the real one, who is standing there and can see evthing), can do nothing but stare and be sorry for what he did to his father, his son, his life... And then, as his father (with his eyes all welled up) says, "I love you, son", and starts to leave, he 'pauses' his life, looks into the cold, still eyes of the man he could never ever show his love and respect to. Then he kisses him and says, "Goodbye Father, miss you."

Sh*t.

I mean... i have had these weird nightmares where i would be getting late to go somewhere and however hard i try i would never be able to get there; just when id start to leave someone would call me or id start searching for something and so on. The movie reminded me of such horrible horrible dreams that i have had till now.

There is one more thing it made me realise... The importance of my family. Wherever I go and whatever I become, the only people i can trust with my life is my family. I know they would stand by me even if i am left with just one arm and a leg, no teeth, no money, nothing.. (Hmm.. that would be a pitiful condition tho. Heh.) It is now that i realise how mean i am to them at times.. My mom, my aunts, my uncles... like a recalcitrant teenager.... rebellious and haughty... Sheh...

I wish i was more understanding, more mature.

But then, i still have time to clear the mess that i have created. No one's perfect right?... Now, i wish i was No one.

The lull after the storm

After three deadly weeks of a##kicking work, i left from work on the 13th, for a three day hiatus from ppts and draft docs, followed by a weekend to top it. Saturday (17th) was my cousin brother's marriage. Apart from the usual frenzy of running around and arranging things, home was chock-a-block with relatives. 18 of them kids, elders and youngsters included. The number started from a decent 8 on Wednesday, to 15 on thursday, and finally quorum accounted to 18 family members by Friday. We had already booked the guest house of our society for the occasion. Thanks to our Mallu neighbour, who had the heart to offer two of his rooms for the nights, we had a total of two and a half houses to sleep in. Imagine the plight of a 1,300 sq feet, 3 BHK+ servant quarter house swarmed by seven brothers and sisters, their spouses and their children and their childeren....

Wednesday and Thursday flew past with shopping for sundries comprising of stuff ranging from clothes to electronic items; venues being Chandni Chowk, Lajpat etc. etc. Shopping doesnt end there,mind you. Every day there would be something or the other that would have to be purchased. And then we would get started towards Achy (Acharya niketan, the local shopping street in the vicinity) in groups of three and sometimes four, divide our purchases to save time so that we could get back home to devour the steaming rice and curries mom and aunts would have made by then. The icing on the cake was the evening chai when everyone would gather in the living room, chit chatting with a fair share of munchies being circulated among all.

Friday evening was a mix of masti and tension. Uhm... masti for us and tension for the elders. I have seen that the latter have a tendency of planning and re-planning and re-re-planning things. At the end of the day, we would be left wondering about the 352,569 plans they discussed since morning, not aware of what exactly was the final decision on the topic.

Mallus dont have anything close to a Mehndi function, so we called the guy who sits on the roads of Achy over to our house in the evening. We did our mehndi thing the quiet way. By 7.30, all the girls in the house were reeking of eucaliptus oil and henna with the paste strewn out in floral patterns all over our palms. It was then followed by a chotu sa dance party. We obviousy couldnt have had our dinner with the iky brown stuff on our palms; so our aunt fed all of us one by one... Yar!.. esi shadiyan roz roz hoti to....

Then came Saturday- Joure De Royale, when Bhaiya tied the knot with my punju bhabhi. The wedding first took place in the mallu style, then in the punju style with hawan and all. The number of pics taken that day is unbelievable. The marriage(s) was followed by a reception party in the evening.That meant yet another bout of make up, dressing up in jhintak clothes, kids running around with their ma's yelling at them to get ready, and a row of vehicles with the huge Warrier family (uhm.. no pun intended ok) and so on. To sum it up, by Saturday night, there was an army of absolutely exhausted mallus, a house full of luggage and paraphernalia, and of course piles of clothes, gifts and food/sweet packets and sundry lying all over the place.

The funniest sight was our chappal stand... I mean someone should see the view to believe me. Looked like a nightmare.. there were at least 25-27 pairs (chappals, sandals, shoes everything included) of different sizes and colours and styles. One of those days, my Mausaji spent half an hour polishing my Mamaji's shoes by mistake... heh.... And here comes the joke of the event .. yeah.. my other cousin bhaiya (who's the elder bro to the dulha here), couldnt find his shoe on the the marriage reception's night, 'cause one of my uncles had already left for the function wearing it...

We all took some time off on Sunday, which basically meant cleaning upthe house, which further meant putting up a lost and found corner for various things forgotten at our place by people, including accessories, clothes, kerchiefs, etc. By evening, Mumbai walahs flew off to their nest, people from Bangalore flew back to Bangalore, and Mamas and Mamis from Kerala started packing their stuff.

The week that followed all this hubbub was extremely depressing and lousy. After everyone had gone back, my home seemed to large for the three of us. It was at the same time that days at work had become a little more chilled out giving me more time to remember and sulk about the nice few days all of us spent together.

It is now that things have come back to normal; i guess Ma would take some more time to adjust to the change. Every night i reach back home, only to find her speaking to my Mausiji or my Mamiji over the phone, about topics she would invent on the spot. Maybe she does that as an unconscious attempt to console herself that her people are still around her. Poor Ma. She is alone in the house for almost the whole day. Bhai and me are never at home, and she is left all alone with the unbelievably vain and useless Mallu evening soaps. Sometimes I wonder why life couldn't be a tad bit simpler. I could have had more time for her then; more time for a lot of other things as well.

Over and Out....

Di and Me

As a kid, I remember waiting eagerly to go to my aunt’s place. Having Di around was always fun. Id allow her to boss me around, I’d admire her clothes and heaps of games she would have stacked on top the almirah, and the way she would neatly tuck her Barbie doll to sleep. She was always the ideal elder sister, ideal in every way. Sometimes we would choose to play a game indoors, or simply run around the stairs and yap about things. At times, we would be kind to my brother and allow him to hang around our otherwise unreachable world. Heh...

We’d be proud of each other for getting promoted to the next class, wear identical dresses and call ourselves ‘ados pados’, do girly things, share secrets. We have performed together on the stage; have cooked weird, unpalatable recipes, joked about our teachers, laughed at our parents’ lack of understanding.

Time was always an issue between us. We’d never be satisfied with the few hours our parents would let us play for. When Ma would tell me its time to go back, id suddenly remember a zillion things I forgot to tell Di. We would make puppy faces and plead to Ma to let me stay back for the night. I still do not understand why we never got enough time for each other.

She left Delhi for her graduation and would come back intermittently for a few days, with occasional visits to my place. Otherwise, we’d somehow manage to remain in touch through letters, emails, sms’s. Distance was never an issue then. Thereafter, she pursued her MBA and me, mine. Then she got married and shifted to Bangalore.

We still don’t have time for each other. She is busy with her life and I hardly have time shuttling between work and home. I don’t remember the last time we spoke to each other at length. But now she seems far away. And that is much more that the number of miles between Bangalore and Delhi.

I miss being around her. Very much.